The Old Man and the Sea

I just finished reading Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea. To say it was phenomenal would be an understatement.

For those who haven't read it, the old man goes far out to sea - farther than he's ever gone - and catches an enormous, 18 foot marlin. The marlin drags him across the ocean for two days before the old man finally reels him in. As he sets sail for home, the defeated behemoth in tow, he realizes that the wounds of the fish have attracted sharks. After a third day of sailing and having defeated dozens of sharks with nothing more than a stick, he arrives home to find that the entire fish has been eaten by those sharks.

What's beautiful is that it doesn't matter. The victory was in the fight, not in the prize. I absolutely love this story.

I identify very clearly with the old man. I feel right now as though my big fish, my dreams, are 100 fathoms in front of me, dragging me out to sea and it's all I can do to hold on for the ride. Hemmingway says it several times throughout the text, that a man is created for the fight. He adapts, he suffers, he fights. "A man may be destroyed but can never be defeated." (paraphrased)

In the end, the man dies (not stated explicitly, but. . . whatev). This is not sad. Just as it's not sad that the fish was lost. Though utterly destroyed, the old man was not defeated.

I refuse to be defeated.

I don't know where God is taking me, but I resolve here and now to grasp that line and hold it fast until I find out.

I'm feeling encouraged.
Thanks for listening,
The Revolution